get hyped like an epidemic whoo USB mics you're probably watching this video because you want one but there are just so many out there and so we are here to help you make the right choice so what do we have we have the audio-technica ATR - 2500 x - USB that's complicated this one is the Apogee hype mic this one is the shore mv5 this is the brand new AKG Lyra over here we have the classic blue yeti pro and the brand new rode NT USB mini well some are totally brand new like the rode mic some old the the sure eyeball for example is about four years old would you say it looks about 400 years old well let's say about sixty years old but I get what are you talking about they're all cardioid polar pattern except for the blue Yeti Pro which is multi pattern and the AKG Lyra which is just a whole category on its own it doesn't have a single capsule it's got four different capsules inside of it there's a whole bunch of price ranges here for these microphones from the sort of $200 range 150 to $200 range and in that category we've got the road USB mic here which is the cheapest and the newest about 150 Australian yeah the shore mv5 is probably comes in at the next least expensive hundred and seventy five Australian currently the Audio Technica comes in a content creator pack with some headphones and a mic stand and cables and all that but we are told that this will also be available in Australia just as the mic alone and that'll come in at about two hundred dollars at office works if you can believe it the Yeti has been around a while there's variants is like a $200 cheaper variant this is the pro version which comes in around four 450 Australian so the AKG is about $200 which is pretty impressive considering it's up there with the yeti pro in functions and then we have the apogee height mic which is a whole other league of its own it's about five hundred and fifty dollars what makes this unique is it has its own three-stage analogue pressure within the microphone which is handy if you're recording instruments and vocals and you're doing more musical recordings with your USB mic so if you're an audio engineer you might be thinking why the heck do I need a USB microphone I've got an audio interface I've got microphones I think USB mics have shown themselves to be really useful especially in the in the covert crisis where everybody wants to be a podcaster a USB microphone will go anywhere it can plug straight in wherever you are at the kitchen bench are the bed into your phone it just provides a whole extra level of portability and flexibility and even if you're not a podcaster or a recording music thing like that just having a nice USB mic can make a big difference for those zoom calls or Skype calls totally I think they're my first impressions of the mics just how retro they're looking I don't really get that I don't understand why manufacturers want us to you're hark back to the 40s and 50s you know clearly like this has got an old RCA look this guy's got it old RCA look I don't I don't know I should RCIA be asking for for royalties I'm not sure and then what's with this thing well yeah the sure eyeball is got the Elvis look and sure owns that's it if you know 55 look don't they but they've gone for the retro look I think the road the road microphone is actually more of that sort of loungy 1970s cool look I'm thinking fondue parties and sunken lounges but it's a cool look I love it the early Mike that is actually from the future is the is the apogee hype mic I really like the look of it the fact that it's so micro is only really let down by the fact that you know the tripod fills half your desk and probably could hold up a satellite dish yeah I don't understand why this tripod has to be so sprawled out it would make a lot more sense of it kind of stood up like that yes however it does have a screw at the back which you can screw it straight into a normal mic stand as well but it is really small maybe when you're looking on the product page and Apogee site you would imagine this is bigger but when it's in your hand it's it's tiny yeah it's tiny the only only USB mic that looks like a mic arguably is the audio technica mica which looks like every other audio technica mic which isn't a bad thing exactly so on the audio technology Facebook page we put it out there if you had any questions to do what these mics we'll do our best to answer them so Shawn you said which of these would handle a trumpet and Jacob you asked what are the highest SPL handlings of these microphones it would seem that the road is the lowest SPL handling with 121 DB so you probably wouldn't want to put a trumpet up in that grille and blast it pretty much all the others will handle really high SPL sounds basically up to like 129 130 DB SPL so you'll be okay with loud sources even tracking a drum kit in a room should be fine with all the others just doing a voiceover test with the audio-technica ATR 2500 X we're using it with the boom stand that comes with the content creator pack the mic itself is available in stores for around $200 it Officeworks and JB and other outlets there is no gain control on the mic itself so the gain happens from your computer like every other mic that we're testing there's a headphone jack now onto the elegant AKG Lyra on the front you have a headphone volume control plus a mute button around the back there's mic gain control as well as control of the polar pickup pattern the four patterns a front front and back tight stereo white stereo we're using the front pickup pattern at the moment onto the apogee hype mic Apogee is the only offering here that isn't a microphone manufacturer the mics accessories are also interesting for example the cutest little pop filter in the world and a tripod that means that'll never trip over any time this century on the mic itself you can toggle between three compression settings as well as a blend control for zero latency monitoring next is the original USB microphone the blue Yeti Pro around the back we have pattern control and gain control around the front we have a mute button as well as volume control for headphones the mic comes with its own breaker cable 5 pin XLR - indipendent 3-pin XLR you can even take the mic out of its cradle and put it on a mic stand now to the brand new road NTE USB mini what a sturdy little mic this is no gain on the mic it's done through the computer there is a headphone gain knob at the front and with the jack at the back next up is this little guy ashore mv5 on the mic itself is a mode button which allows you to toggle between three settings instrument vocal and music there's a headphone output with the volume control as well it's really handy to have a lightning lead that allows you to record straight to your phone one of the best things about this mic is the shore plus motive app which allows you to edit your recording on your phone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone the present invention relates to a condenser microphone and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter house therein and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter house therein and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter house therein and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter house therein and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter house therein and more particularly to an electric circuit which can activate characteristics of an impedance converter housed therein [Music] [Music] well there you have it recording is made with all six of these microphones now as with any shootout it is really hard to make sure there are absolutely zero inconsistencies obviously some of these mics were standing a bit taller than others so the distances between Chris's mouth or my guitar weren't bang on every single time and I must apologize for the central heating noise that you're hearing that's not the self noise of the microphones there anything that's simply the ambient noise so Chris what were your impressions on your voice over recording for voiceover I quite like to work the mic I like the proximity effect so having the microphones is a tabletop mic that has limitations for me so I guess one observations I like the boom stand obviously the boom stand doesn't come as standard with the 8080 mic but I think just consider that when you're if you're doing a lot of podcasting you know the working of the mic is important I was pretty impressed with the sound of the little Shaw mark given its price it was real yeah it was a real surprise packet for me as well for sure and I didn't have a lot of expectation from the show market sounds really said it produced for the voiceover for voiceover in podcasting having a tight polar pattern is really important you don't want to be hearing the room that you're in because we're not in a professional recording space now three of these mics are really quite tight which is very effective the apogee the shore and the blue mics I found to be really quite tight and didn't pick up a lot of noise from or a lot of sound from the room on the other hand the Lyra felt to me probably the widest and the other two mics the audio technica and the road bike I was hearing more room let's talk about the guitar recordings Prashad obviously each mic is revealing a totally different sound and a totally different aspects of the guitar can you talk us through each of the mics in turn yeah it's really hard to pick a favorite because every Mike did sounds so different on acoustic guitar I think the audio technica sounded like a studio mic probably because it is and it's got a full-size condenser capsule in there it was very detailed in the high end I found especially in the sound of the pic hitting the strings there was a lot of detail and clarity all the way down to the lows so very natural sound very full big studio kind of sound the apogee mic it's funny that it's called a hype mic because I thought it was pretty unhype t' especially listening compared to the others with more pronounced high-end the apogee was really neutral really clean sounding there was no part of the frequency spectrum that really jumped out in an ugly way the shore mv5 I thought was very scooped it didn't have much mids instead the highs were really pronounced almost in a slightly prickly ugly way and the lows were also pronounced but remember we were just using one of the three voicing settings on that so other settings might even things out a bit more the AKG Lyra was a really nice sound as well a bit muted in the highs compared to some of the others the peak attack wasn't as pronounced for example but it was quite a focused forward punchy direct sound with a lot more mids than some of the other mics I think the Yeti was probably the most usable it's clean and solid and firm there was nothing ugly about how it sounded and I could see myself using the sound of the Yeti on my acoustic guitar in a in a proper studio recording the rode mic surprised me it sounded really good on acoustic guitar considering it's the cheapest of the lot it was pretty roomy because the cardioid pickup is pretty wide but I've definitely rate it for musical instruments let's take a little price so of the microwave got here let's just say you have an absolute maximum of 200 dollars to spend now we've got the road in that price point about 150 we've got the shore at about 175 we've got the AKG at about 180 190 and the Audio Technica at 200 I think you go for the road or the shore if portability is important to you and if you're not going to be doing much music recording so if you are going to be recording guitars saxophones you know even vocals for proper like music recordings you probably would opt for something like the AKG or the Audio Technica they're a bit more of a studio microphone and they're probably going to give you more versatility but if you just want something to make your zum calls sound better and if you want to just do the odd kind of one-person podcast here or there I think the road or the shore mv5 are pretty hard to pass up on just because they're so small you can chuck them into your briefcase or on a backpack and they're sturdy and they sound surprisingly good the the road for mine the build quality is second to none it's built amazingly well it just feels reassuringly hefty it's awesome the shore you know let's be honest this is not sure it's finest hour when it comes to build quality and they wouldn't they wouldn't suggest that it's their most amazing mic ever no one's saying that it's definitely lighter and importable and be sure it's not gonna Buster that's for sure let's be sure that's for sure yeah thank you so price we've got the second bracket of price range the mics that are in that four to five hundred dollar range let's talk about that portion so you have the blue Yeti Pro which is about 450 and then the apogee hype mic which is like about 550 getting close to 600 I've had I've been living with the Yeti for a while now poor Sean and it's a different it's a different contender here because it's not only a USB mic it's an actual studio mic it doubles so it I think it deserves a different consideration having it having the option of putting it on a mic stand having in the breakout cables as a true stereo microphone it really adds to the versatility of this mic as a studio Michael the apogee however you're probably thinking that's just ridiculous it's 550 dollars and it certainly is expensive however it does have a three-stage fully analog compressor inside the mic and that's pretty attractive if you're going to be recording a lot of music if you're going to be recording vocals plus it has the Apaches pure digital conversion technology which means you're going to be getting a much higher sound quality if you really care about good sound and Apogee as a brand is known for quality conversion so they're not going to put their name to something that sounds crap there are two contenders here push on that do the pickup pattern very differently the two marks here that have multiple pickup pattern options that really adds to adds a different dimension to the use of these mics and again that is really useful if you're going to be recording podcasts and say for example you have a person on the other side of the table then you you can't do that with any of these other mics except for the AKG Lyra and the blue Yeti Pro where you can have this two ended pickup plus you can go omnidirectional with both of them which means you could stick it in the center of a table and have people all around the table and it's going to pick them all up evenly so that's it we hope that this video has helped you decide which USB mic best suits your purposes it's not a clear-cut decision is it there's a lot of variety out there but they all have their strengths it just depends on what you're looking for